This is all her fault.

My parents lie dead somewhere in the ruins of Northern Aldridge, along with everyone else in the kingdom who had to suffer from her arrogance. They did nothing wrong. They baked every day and gave their bread away to the less fortunate people in the slums, and had done so even before I attained permission to raid the royal pantry. They weren’t the ones who decided to produce unneeded magical crystals. Yet the one who made that decision is alive, and they are dead.

Never before have I felt so utterly repulsed from kissing this girl. The first few times were a little weird, of course. It seemed strange back then to be a girl kissing another girl when every couple around me had been heterosexual. I also felt a bit dirty to know I had no love for the girl, yet had to act as her girlfriend to get grain and yeast for my parents, and hence the Level Zeros in general.

But I had never felt repulsed by the idea. I am kissing the direct cause of my parents’ death. I am kissing the girl who destroyed a kingdom because she wanted to hear a fake “Angel” tell her “good job.” I am kissing the girl who probably doesn’t even know what she did. And all because I want to distract her enough to not use magic.

The strange green light dies, and we release each other’s lips. I’m not dead, so my strategy might have worked. I force my eyes open and see something I never dreamed possible.

The Gate of Heaven lies in ruins. The indestructible Gate has been destroyed, along with a good portion of the wall on either side.

A mile in any direction is a barren wasteland. No snow, no houses, no people or Black Wings. The homes and buildings closest to the Gate of Heaven no longer exist, without even rubble in their place. The snow, which has covered the ground my entire life, is gone and replaced by burned soil. It is likewise on the other side of the gate. However, on the Northern Aldridge side, there are houses beyond the radius, still burning with those horrible black flames, and Black Wings flying above, yet taking no heed to us. On the Aldridge side, there is nothing but more snow stretching in the miles beyond.

“What is this?” Eve is every bit as perplexed as me. Her attempts to make sense of the desolation surrounding us is as futile as my own. “There was a green light and a scream, and then this. Is this what the world is like when our spirits pass through the gate to join the Angels?”

Even now, she holds onto those stupid beliefs. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not dead yet. But come on, we can’t just stand here. The Black Wings will notice us before long.”

Eve places her hands on her hips. “Who is the queen here? Who gives commands?”

I could slap her, but that would only waste more time. “Then what do you command, my queen?” Despite my best efforts to avoid sarcasm, I can’t keep it out of my voice. Yet Eve doesn’t seem to notice.

“We need to move before the Black Wings see us.” She steps over the rubble of the Gate of Heaven – the only thing not completely incinerated by that green light. It is only by pure luck the rubble didn’t touch us.

When I lift my leg, a sharp pain crosses my thigh. Maybe the rubble didn’t touch Eve, but I suppose it grazed me. I have a nice gash across the exposed skin of my upper thigh.

Eve notices my wince. “That seems painful. Here, let me—” She pulls out her staff.

“Don’t!” I cover up the gash with my hand. “Those Black Wings are attracted to magic. We can heal this later, but we need to put some distance between ourselves and Northern Aldridge.”

Eve lowers her staff, and my tension flees my body. For a moment I thought she’d continue to charge forward like a tiger without any heed to the wills of others.

We emerge on the Aldridge side of the Gate. Despite all the claims from the church of the air being somehow “holy” such that one breath will cure all worries, I still fear the Black Wings behind us. Are they going to discover us somehow?

Eve and I hike south. The desolated area turns to snow cover yet again, with our boots leaving a thick track behind us. We stay silent through the cold march, even as the snow kicks up again. Most of my body is covered with the thin white material, so the cold is at least bearable. Eve is still in her ascension outfit, so with her bare legs and exposed shoulders, she has no chance against the elements. Her best attempts to cover her shoulders do little to prevent the goosebumps forming.

The cold bites the wound on my thigh, making it sting worse than before. It tempts me more and more to ask Eve if we can stop and have her heal it. But I’m not sure if we’ve put enough distance between ourselves and the Black Wings. For that matter, I’m not even sure if we ever can.

My walk turns into a limp, and my limp into a struggle to stay on my feet. I try to count to a hundred steps with the believe the next hundred will pull us out of this situation. Those “Angels” had to come from somewhere, right? There had to be an end to the snowfield. Maybe there is an inn or a village somewhere nearby for those “Angels” to stay at on their journeys north.

My foot slips, and I collapse to the ground. The searing pain in my thigh lets me know I’m not going to get back up again.

Eve kneels down beside me. “Look behind you,” she says.

There is nothing behind us anymore. Northern Aldridge has faded beyond the horizon, and even the wall is gone. We are surrounded by snow in all directions, with only our footprints directing us north.

Eve pulls down the golden lining of my sock to get a better view of the wound. “It is deeper than I thought.” She holds her hand over my leg, and a deep yellow light forms from its palm.

On one hand, I want to warn her against using magic, lest the Black Wings discover us again. On the other, I know if she doesn’t, we will never continue on from here, and we will die in any case.

Unlike my parents’ favorite treatments of witch hazel and rubbing alcohol, healing magic doesn’t sting. Rather, it feels as if something or somebody is giving the wound a gentle massage, mending it back as it used to be. The pain in my leg subsides, and the light from Eve’s hand dims.

Yet she continues to stare at the former wound.

“What’s wrong?”

She runs her finger over my still tender thigh. “There is a scab.”

“That’s normal. Wounds scab up and heal when the new skin is in place.” I hop to my feet, more than eager to put some more miles between ourselves and the Black Wings. “It means your healing worked. Thank you.”

Eve bites her lip. “Level Five healing magic means I should be able to make it as if you never were injured. There should not even be a scab.”

I shrug. “A scab’s no big deal. Better that than an open wound. Come on, let’s go.”

Without the wound on my thigh, and with the extra body heat from our physical activity, the cold no longer seems as bad. With enough distance between us and the Wall, Eve finally asks the most pertinent question.

“Do you know what happened back there?”

“I don’t. There was this big green light, and something warm coming from your chest, but my eyes were closed.”

Eve grips the emerald dangling from her necklace. “I think this protected us somehow. I am not sure how, but it still feels warm. But I am not asking about the end. I am asking about the beginning. You seemed to know a bit about the Black Wings.”

I step through the thickening snow. It is becoming harder to see the field. Night must be falling from the increasing darkness. “It’s only a story in a fairy tale, nothing more. I only had to go based on my memories of it.”

“Tell me the story. I would like to hear it.”

She continues to plunge ahead, despite her blue lips and the snow in her hair. If the snow is so visible in her golden locks that I can see it, I can only imagine how poignant it must stand out in my black hair.

“I can’t remember it word for word, but I’ll give you the gist of it. Once upon a time, there was a great kingdom of Wingless.” Since this story refers to humans as “Wingless” I have to assume this is a story given from the “Angels.”

“The Wingless had built a great society from naught more than their own efforts, and everybody living in it prospered. From Level Five to Level Zero, there was not a single Wingless who wanted anything more than a partner in love and kids to which they could spread the joy of their lives.”

If only Northern Aldridge could have been that kind of a place. My childhood memories of insatiable hunger and cold nights huddled in the same bed as my brothers strike back with resounding relevance.

“The Level Fours, however, wanted more. They desired for the power of the Queen. They desired to become Level Fives themselves. So they, along with the Level Threes, began working on an object of massive power. This object would not only store their magical energy, but produce and give it back to them redoubled. By creating a perpetual flow of magical energy, they would accumulate so much they would become Level Fives, according to their theory.”

It’s a bit of a fallacy in the first place. Magical energy does not determine the strength of one’s powers – only how much magic one can perform in one day. But I remind myself this is a fairy tale and continue.

“They succeeded in creating the artifact, much to the joy of the people. They became Level Fives, and soon staged a coup d’état to seize even more power. Those below them, instead of being able to use the object to create things of good instead were forced into slavery. Everything they did were for the benefits of the Level Fives, heeding to their beck and call. The Level Zeros were routinely massacred, and any child born who had no magical potential was killed on the spot.”

In some ways, even Eve’s mom wasn’t as bad as the story had made them out to be.

“Yet they still desired more. They tried to make the object bigger and stronger with the hopes of one day becoming a Level Six. Should they have this power, they believed they could challenge God himself and become like the ‘Angels.’ Yet their arrogance would become their undoing. For when one slaughters more meat than they need, the wolves will come.

“From the mountains in the north came a vast horde of Black Wings. They do not need food and water like us. Sunlight is their water, which is why the sky always turns dark when they approach. And magic is their food. They normally can get enough from the magic in the air, but when there is such an abundant food source like that object of old, or like your attempts at creating so many crystals at once, they swarm in like flies to honey. And they spare no one.”

I clench my fist as memories of the past day return. “They massacred the kingdom. Not a single Level Five was spared from their wrath. The kingdom would have fallen to the same fate as Northern Aldridge, save for the actions of the queen’s own son. He grabbed his sword and thrust it into the object at the cost of his own life. The object exploded, and the Black Wings were driven back to their mountains. The ‘Angels’ appeared soon after and congratulated the remaining people of the kingdom, telling them the Black Wings are nothing more than the representation of their arrogance and lust for power. By giving up what they treasure most dearly, they have overcome the trial. And together, they entered the kingdom of Aldridge to live forever in paradise.”

My parents always skipped over the last part of the story and replaced it with a story of great rejoicing by the people. But I learned to read using that book, and discovered many religious aspects my parents had hid so as to keep me from believing in myths and fables.

The snow seems to be lessening with every step we take. Perhaps we can find some place to sleep in the open and not freeze to death. Then again, the cold hasn’t subsided in the slightest.

Eve stays silent long after my tale. She looks down at the snowfield and presses forward. “Arrogance?” she finally asks.

“It’s only a fairy tale. You know how they try and put in morals into every tale.” The lecture on her arrogance can wait for another day. There are far more important things to deal with now.

“I suppose so.”

Our saving grace comes in the form of a tree. It stands out so alone in the snowfield, we have to rub our eyes to make sure it is real. Yet it is undoubtedly real and dead – a perfect source of firewood for the night. Eve clears out an area from snow as I break off a few branches. The fire catches with only a few sparks from my flint and steel, and before long we’re huddled together basking in its soft glow.

Eve leans her head against mine. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“You have nothing to apologize about. You didn’t know what would happen.” This cold hike had taken me out of my rage from earlier. Rather than thinking of the ways my parents could have survived had Eve acted different, I thought of how long they lived because of Eve’s generosity. Eve may not realize it, but her simple act of allowing me freedom to take what I wished from the food pantry had given hundreds of people years upon years of life and freedom from starvation.

The night is silent beyond the crackle of fire. That is why when something mews, I nearly have a heart attack.

A brown cat tramples through the snow, pushing towards the fire. From the grey of its whiskers, its best days are long behind it, but its bright yellow eyes show no sign of giving in to father time any time soon. If it’s made it through this harsh environment for this long, it’ll make it another day.

“Come on.” I pat my lap. It doesn’t hesitate to leap into it, spreading its warmth through my body. I scratch behind its ear, which makes it purr ever so softly.

Eve watches bemusedly. “I suppose we will have to pin it in place and shoot it with an arrow.”

“What? It’s not harming anyone, so why would we do that?”

She blinks. “You mean you want to cook it alive?”

“Cook it?!”

“Well, of course. We have not had a bite to eat for almost a full day now. I do not know about you, but I am starving. Even a cat will do.”

She doesn’t know starving. Starving is eating raw flour mixed with water because you need to get something into your body. “This cat is mine. I’ll name it Holly and take care of it. You can find your own cat if you want to eat it.”

Eve lifts her head up off my shoulder. “I command you to cook it for dinner as your queen.”

“And I command you to leave it alone as your lover.” I pet the fur between its yellow eyes, which make it purr louder. If yellow eyes are the symbol of royalty in this world, does this mean this is a royal cat? No, cats don’t care about things as silly as royalty and lineage. They only care about their next meal.

Eve leans her head back on my shoulder, knowing she doesn’t have the energy to fight me. I run my other hand through her hair to brush out the snow.

“I know hunger. I’ve lived through it all my life. If we have to do something as barbaric as eating a cat, I’ll tell you when it’s time. But for now, tighten up your belt and press on. There has to be something more than this snowfield out there. Those ‘Angels’ came from somewhere.”

Eve isn’t listening anymore. She’s fast asleep on my shoulder, taking peaceful breaths. I consider taking a watch, but nobody’s going to come here. Even if they did, what would we do? There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Holly curls up in my lap to join Eve’s slumber. It has a tag on its neck in the shape of a star. Maybe Eve wouldn’t notice, but I understand what that star means.

“Did you really walk all the way here from Northern Aldridge?” It yawns as if to answer me.

My eyes grow heavy and I lean my head against Eve’s in that cold October night.